Counting Colours
by Second Star On The Left
Summary: Happily ever afters aren't perfect, you know. NickXLirael
1. Wedding Bells

AN: Just something short little thing inspired by the various NickxLirael stories I've read on here. I ADORE them as a couple, and I just thought that (even though there's no mention of marriage customs in the books) that there could be a little something like this for when they do inevitably get married :)

Niamh :)

* * *

There were too many people wearing white.

That was the first thing that struck Sam. White was an impractical colour, easily dirtied and difficult to clean, even with laundry magic. Why on earth would anyone chose to wear white?

Then again, Sam thought, the Clayr weren't just _anyone_, and it wasn't as though they wore white robes with silver-and-moonstone circlets while going about their daily business. They were only wearing them because today was a very, very important day.

They were all crammed into a huge hall near the Palace. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day in the middle of the Winter. Even so, it was too warm in the hall. It amazed Sam that the Clayr could remain so utterly calm and serene looking when the damp warmth of too-many-people was making their blonde hair frizz.

Odd to think he was related to them.

Only two were wearing surcoats, as official representatives of their people. The twinned Voices of the Nine Day Watch, Sanar and Ryelle, their hair golden-white against the rich green silk of their surcoats, the golden star gleaming on their crests.

* * *

There weren't enough people wearing red.

Sam noticed that no one else in the entire hall was wearing red besides his father and his sister. Ellimere sat at Touchstone's right hand, the red of their surcoats making them stick out a mile in the sea of more neutral colours (and white) surrounding them. Both looked totally at ease, despite the fact that they _had _to know most of the people on the hall were staring at them. Regal, Sam knew was the word, although he was at loathe to apply it to Ellimere. It was almost a compliment.

There were an unusual amount of people in Ancelstierran clothes.

Nick, of course, was wearing Old Kingdom clothes, but his parents and his uncles and aunts were all wearing slightly raggy machine-made clothes from the other side of the Wall. Mrs. Sayre, Nick's mother, had had a magnificent hat that seemed biggeer than her up until about ten minutes ago, when it spontaneously and instantaneously decomposed in a mess of organza and raw silk.

* * *

There was just one person in blue.

It seemed that everyone had steered clear of blue, much as they had of red. Sabriel sat on Touchstone's other side, clothed in her royal blue surcoat with her bandoleer across her chest. Sam smiled, remembering the look of something close to terror when Nick's father had seen Sabriel and Lirael clambering down from a weather-beaten Paperwing, swords on their hips and bandoleers strapped across their chests. He'd never really considered it before, but he supposed his mother presented something of an imposing figure.

* * *

"Sameth?"

Sam pulled his head back from the gap in the door. Lirael was standing just behind him, her hair bound up under a net of delicate silver wire studded with tiny moonstones - part of a birthday present from Sam, of course - and wearing a dress that wouldn't have looked out of place on any of the Clayr. It was beautiful - even Sam, with his limited knowledge of dresses and the like, could recognise that - made of deep blue silk, tightly fitted and lower than anything Lirael would normally wear, with a wide skirt that was embroidered with silver thread. There was a delicate pattern of silver keys stitched into the hem, so faint that you'd hardly notice them if you didn't know to look for them.

"You look lovely, Lirael," he said honestly, smiling at her nervous face. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes a little brighter than usual.

"Thank you," she murmured. Sam laughed quietly, offering her his arm. His surcoat was so glaringly yellow that there was a faint green glow as she linked her arm through his.

"Ready to get married, Aunty?" he teased. Lirael smiled, a true smile.

The doors opened. Music played.

"Well, I can't very well leave Nicholas standing up there on his own like a ninny, can I?"

Sam rolled his eyes. Of all his relations, Lirael was most definitely the strangest.


	2. Battleground

That ear-splitting screech of rotting vocal cords as they were tried to cry out. The gargle of an empty throat laughing. The creaking of decaying joints as their owners shambled along in a semblance of life.

The sweet singing of steel slicing through air. The thud of iron embedding in dead flesh. The rapturous melody of old bells and older bells and voices laced with magic casting out the demons that infested the Dead.

* * *

Lirael gasped for breath as she halted, her new sword, one of Sam's most recent creations, clasped in her golden hand and Saraneth held by the clapper in her left. Sabriel was next to her, controlling her breathing better as she surveyed the mess of Dead that lay motionless around them.

The heat was still rushing through Lirael, and she couldn't breathe. She couldn't.

She hastily sheathed her sword and tied Saraneth back into place as Sam and Nick made their way across the now-silent battle field, setting fire to the corpses as they passed. Her pulse beat in her ears, in her wrists, and she felt sick with it.

* * *

No matter how long she fought the Dead at Sabriel's side, no matter how many times she threw herself into battle, she hoped that she'd never lose the sickness that came after. She knew that the destruction of the Dead and of Free Magic was the Abhoresons' way, but she wondered if it was her Clayr blood that kept her from relishing every victory as Sabriel seemed to.

Nick touched his fingers to her elbow, his brow creased in concern. He alone understood. Sabriel was the purest of Abhoresen, and Sam was half-Abhoresen, half-Royal, and they were bred for the battle field. Nick had been raised in a world of quiet and academia, not unlike herself, except in his world political talent took the place of the Sight in hers.

* * *

She forced a smile as she forced back bile as that furious burning hit her once more, and he saw it. His frown deepened as Sam and Sabriel chatted about something that had happened at the Midwinter Festival.

She shuddered, pulled her surcoat closer around herself, leaned into the embrace of Nick's extended left arm. He still held his sword in his right hand, and he eyed the bright golden fires that were the only remainder of the battle with a wary gaze.

"We should tell them," he said quietly, his lips against her loosened plait as he moved to kiss her neck. "I don't want you out like this anymore."

"Nicholas-"

"Lirael," he said softly. "I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to the two of you."

She turned her face up and looked at him, smiling as best she could and resting her hand on her still-flat stomach.

* * *

Yes, Lirael Goldenhand, Abhoresen-in-Waiting, wife of the Old Kingdom Ambassador to Ancelstierre, Nicholas Sayre, was glad that the sickness that came in the aftermath of destruction hadn't left her. She hoped that someday, she could pass on a peaceful world to the child that even now grew within her, and that sickness was a constant reminder of her task.

Nick's child would grow up happier than she had. She would make sure of that.


	3. Final Chapter

Silence engulfed them.

When the Abhoresen had fallen, there had been outrage and fury and murderous rage - all from the Ambassador. Few had ever seen him so lost in his anger that he could fight so brilliantly.

And now it was over, and he knelt with her in his arms, his forehead against hers, golden hair and black, both flecked with silver, and his shoulders shook as he vented his grief.

"Dad?"

A tall, slight girl, her hair the same blonde as her father's but her eyes as dark as her mother's had been, touched the Ambassador's shoulder with uncertain fingers. Her twin, as dark as she was fair, with their father's light blue eyes, stood by her side, his hand resting against the bandoleer across his chest. Both had felt their mother's passing before she'd hit the ground.

Nicholas Sayre, Old Kingdom Ambassador to Ancelstierre, one-time host to the Destroyer, husband of Abhoresen Lirael Goldenhand, father of the twins, Arielle and Edward, lifted his head. He looked from one of his children to the other.

"I'm so sorry," he choked out, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. "I should have saved her."

Edward reached out a hand and gripped Nick's shoulder firmly.

"It was Mother's time, Dad," he said quietly. "There was nothing any of us could have done."

* * *

In the fair city atop the hill, with the sea-spray sparkling in the early sunshine, there is the remnants of a party. The Queen's youngest daughter has just come of age, and the whole city had been celebrating. There were visitors from across the Kingdom, and from Ancelstierre, where the Princess had gone to school.

It was the morning after, and the Queen was distracted. She stood at the edge of the balcony with her younger brother, the Wallmaker, scanning the skies.

"They should be back by now, surely," Ellimere murmured, linking her elbow with Sameth's and frowning. "It's been three days."

"These things take time," Sam said, shrugging. "And there's always a chance that they were called somewhere else and haven't had a chance to send a hawk."

"But Nick and Arielle should have been back from the Glacier," Ellimere insisted stubbornly. "They left over a week ago."

Sam shrugged again, not sure how he was supposed to answer.

"They'll be back soon," he said firmly. "They've never not come back, have they?"

And just then, a Paperwing came into view, a speck of deep blue in the pale dawn sky.

* * *

Nick ignored Sam and Ellimere's calls of greeting as he climbed down from the Paperwing. He glanced up at the sky briefly, knowing the Arielle and Edward wouldn't be far behind, and proceeded to carry on without acknowledging his niece- and nephew-in-law.

He couldn't face them. Not now.

Lirael could have been sleeping, he noted as he lifted her gently out of her seat, averting his gaze from the thick layer of bandages Arielle had wound around her mother's torso. She looked so peaceful, just like she did when she'd passed out in the middle of one of those awful, cheap horror stories she liked to read when it was just the two of them in the Abhoresen's House...

The second Paperwing, this one the deep purple of the Ambassador's office (his office), began its descent. Arielle jumped from the second seat before they were on the ground, and Nick almost laughed. Lirael had done that whenever she wasn't flying, once she'd gotten used to the Paperwings.

Then Sam and Ellimere were there, and it was awful.

* * *

There were too many people wearing white.

Sam remembered another day, long ago, when there had been a great collection of the Clayr in this same hall. That day had been cold and bright and glorious, but this was not so.

Just as on that day, there were two women amongst the Clayr dressed in green. Sanar and Ryell's glistening white hair spilled across their shoulders as they bowed their heads close together, trying to hide their grief. They had been the closest to Lirael, and so they had been chosen to officially represent the Clayr today.

* * *

There were four people wearing red.

Ellimere, her husband and their two children were sitting in the second seat from the front, red surcoats trimmed with sable fur as a mark of mourning. Sam no longer begrudged calling his sister regal, because she had proved herself just that since her ascent to the throne in the wake of their parents' deaths.

* * *

There were three people in yellow.

Sam himself, of course. His wife, Hellia, too, and their son Torrigan. Their daughter, Cassia, would have been with them had it not been for that awful, terrible crash in the experimental Paperwing which had crippled Sam's left leg and killed his beautiful girl. They sat in the second seat, with Ellimere and her family, Royal and Wallmaker together.

* * *

There were two people in purple.

Purple had always been the colour of choice for the Old Kingdom Ambassadors, but since Nick's taking over the role of ambassador to Ancelstierre, he had also seemed to have taken over the colour. Now, he and his apprentice, Arielle, both wore the rich purple silk that had always looked so well next to Abhoresen blue, and Nick's shoulders heaved as he buried his face in his hands and sobbed, Arielle's hair pale gold across his shoulder.

* * *

There was one person in blue.

Edward, now Abhoresen, sat with his head down, his right hand resting on the lovingly maintained bandoleer across his chest. He was probably the best trained Abhoresen since his and Sam's grandfather, because he'd been preparing for Lirael's death his entire life. He was as sombre and carefully considerate as his mother had been, as thirsty for knowledge as both his parents and as wickedly funny as Nick. From the moment he'd spoken hid first word ("cold") everyone had known that he would be the one to follow in Lirael's footsteps.

* * *

"Sam?"

It was much later, after Nick had laid the torch on the pyre, along with the little soapstone statuette of a dog, when he came to Sam.

"Yeah, Nick?"

"What do I do now?"

Nick had grown into himself since the day Lirael had brought him back across the Wall. Straightened up, he was taller than Sam, and he'd filled out and put on muscle, something he'd maintained carefully into middle age. He carried his surcoat and sword with an air of entitlement, and his golden-blonde and silver-grey hair was always neatly combed.

Nick still looked all those things, was unchanged apart from the tear-tracks and red-rimmed eyes.

But without Lirael, dear, sweet, odd Lirael, he seemed broken. Lost.

"You carry on, Nick. It's what she would have wanted."

* * *

**AN: **And this, at last, is the end of _Counting Colours. _I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading.

And apologies for the angst-ridden finale, but it pretty much wrote itself.

Niamh :)


End file.
